


The Myrtle

by wordplay



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordplay/pseuds/wordplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So few wishes ever come true. This is the story of those that do.</p><p>A Retelling of “The Myrtle”, an Italian fairytale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Myrtle

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Fairytale week of Klaine AU Fridays over on tumblr and was originally posted on [tumblr](http://wordplaying.tumblr.com/post/26789661972/fairytale-au-the-myrtle) and then [LJ](http://wordplayitout.livejournal.com/26779.html).

Celebration came but rarely in the poor village of Lima, but nearly all the town celebrated the wedding of Elizabeth and Burt, the kindest and most gentle of their village, with joy and music and the finest of the ale and wishes from all corners. Burt wished for a long and peaceful life with Elizabeth; Elizabeth wished for a house full of laughing children with full bellies; and the people of Lima wished that all people could find love and goodness the way that Burt and Elizabeth always had.

So few wishes ever come true.

Every month Elizabeth wished for a baby. Her wants were simple but heartfelt; she longed for that stirring in her belly and her heart and the peaceful flow of their life. She wanted to teach her daughter to spin, her son to sing, her children to take joy in a smooth dough for bread and a fast bubble for beer. And every month her belly grew heavy and she was sure, she knew that it was time, and then her spirit grew heavy days later. Burt would take her into their narrow, soft bed and smoothe her hair, glistening golden-red in the firelight, and feel such torment that his wishes seemed to come true while Elizabeth’s never did. And then for days their joy together would increase, and her hope would rise, and they would move together by the fire and afterward Elizabeth would whisper, “Please, please, even the tiniest sprig of myrtle, just one of our very own.”

The moons passed one into another and then, when Elizabeth’s eyes had grown sad and Burt’s heart had grown so weary, one night after he loved her he held her hands and pressed his forehead against hers and whispered along with her, “Please, please, even the tiniest sprig of myrtle, just one of our very own.”

Wishes are curious things; when made in the most passing of breaths they carry nothing more than the breeze that bears them. But when they are passed back and forth serious and solemn, when they are shared between two hearts so intently they transform into something more, something heavy and life-altering. When one person loves another so much that her wishes become his very own, magic can sometimes happen.

And so the weeks came and then they went, and Elizabeth’s joy continued to increase along with her belly. Burt’s heart lifted to see her smile, to see her grow, to splay his hands across her skin and watch her smile down at him while he did. And then, just after the harvest, the most lovely and delicate sprig of myrtle came into their lives, strong and slender and already so fragrant. Elizabeth counted the leaves along the tender branch, pressing her nose against the leaves and raining on them with her tears. It was not the baby she’d originally hoped for, but it was hers and it was Burt’s, and above all else it was a sign that together they could wish for anything.

She should have remembered, of course, about her original wish. She had already learned that all wishes don’t come true, but her love for the Myrtle was devoted and pure, and when she sang to the Myrtle, when she repotted it and watered it and gazed upon it daily, she forgot the trick of wishes. She forgot that a wish made by one is just air, simple and common as every breath we take, and she let herself blossom and swell in her happiness so much that it slipped into carelessness. And one day, while she knelt in her garden to gather better soil for her most precious sprig of myrtle, she was stung by a bee that had come to explore its lovely white and gold-tinged-with-red flowers, and then Elizabeth was beyond even the power of the most fervent wishes. Because bees carry with them hope of sweetness and flowers everlasting, but hope can sometimes carry a price too steep for anybody to bear.

Burt mourned her with his whole body; his spirit cried out for her. He forgot to tend the Myrtle, even as it began to wither and droop. It was just too much; without a daughter with her smile or a son with her curious eyes, he worried that he would forget her lovely face and the music of her laughter. Every night he sat before the fire and turned a lock of her hair in his hands, golden-red and precious because it was the last of its kind - there would never be more hair exactly this shade: brown in the winter and golden by summer and golden-red, glistening and beautiful by the fire. He would draw the Myrtle down to sit beside him, and his tears would water the parched soil, and so together they would weep for her.

And so time passed.

One night a knock came late, and it came again and yet again before Burt stirred from his reverie by the fireplace and shuffled, slow and unsteady, to pull the door open against every failed wish and dream heavy in his home. There, on the doorstop, stood a man with regal bearing but simple clothes, fatigue etched across his face.

His horse had begun to stumble on the path, he said, and he hoped to perhaps shelter for the night in exchange for payment in the morning. Burt stared at him, at his gentle smile, for only a moment before he said, “You are welcome to share my hearth, because the night is cold and nobody should be alone on a night like this one.”

Together they talked, Burt and the gentle stranger named Blaine, and as they talked Blaine’s eyes drifted to the Myrtle. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered, and when Burt said gruffly back, “Thank you. We’ve always been very proud,” Blaine simply nodded. The leaves were dusty, but even so the Myrtle itself stood with pride, straight and bright-flowered, and when Blaine lowered his head the clear, strong scent of the leaves was a breath of fresh air, opening his lungs and his mind and his heart.

The next morning Blaine lingered with the Myrtle, polishing each of its leaves to a glossy shine. Before he left he told Burt his true origins, too delicate to be revealed to a stranger but perfectly available to a new friend - he wasn’t simply an unfortunate traveler, he was Prince of these lands, known to his friends simply as Blaine but to all of the land as the son of King Anders. Burt watched him, this young and gentle prince, as Blaine took each leaf of the Myrtle in a gentle hand and a soft cloth and polished the dust away. When Blaine finished he set the pot atop the mantle and smiled wistfully at it.

Burt watched. He watched as the Myrtle seemed to lean into Blaine’s careful touch, and he watched as his young prince grew glassy-eyed as he turned to leave. But it was his Myrtle, the only piece of Elizabeth still left to him and dear in its own right, and so he said nothing.

As Blaine pressed gold in compensation for the shelter of the night before into Burt’s palm his jaw grew set, and finally he spoke his mind.

“I’m sorry, I simply must ask. The sprig of myrtle growing upon your mantle - never have I seen its like. It is, I believe, the most extraordinary myrtle in all the land, and I wish you would sell it to me.”

And it was just that, that simple wish, offered up without hesitation, pride, or expectation, that set Burt free. It wasn’t a wish he shared - it was nothing so simple. But the reminder that sometimes wishes are enough, and that new wishes will always arise if the old ones continue to die, was all he needed to let the Myrtle go.

So there, with his back turned so Prince Blaine could not see, Burt whispered to the sprig of myrtle, “You were her greatest wish, and she was mine, and so I wish you well, forever and more.”

And to Prince Blaine he said, “I will give it to you, as a gift freely given and nothing more, but only if you will promise to me that you will treat it with respect and immense care. This sprig of myrtle was the fondest wish of my most beloved, and it is only there that she still lives. You must remember that even though it seems hardy, it is still delicate, and that it carries within it every hope and wish of the kindest woman I have ever known.”

Blaine’s eyes were warm then, glassy once again with joy and compassion as he gazed from Burt’s face to the sprig of myrtle that turned its glowing white flowers toward the sun from the open door. “You have my word, upon my honor, that I will treasure it.”

And so the Myrtle passed from one pair of loving hands into the care of another at the behest of simply a wish, and left the poor and tiny village of Lima to begin its new life with the son of King Anders.

\---

The Prince was as good as his word. The Myrtle captured pride of place among his many belongings, at the end of a shelf near where his caged songbird rested. Every morning he greeted the day with a stretch and a greeting for both, and when he had breakfasted he pulled the Myrtle from his shelf and poured the last of his jug of water into its soil. He left it to sun for the day on his windowsill, but at night he pulled it close and stared into its leaves, whispering his secrets and his joys into the plant. It soon became his closest companion, for as the Myrtle was without voice there was nothing he feared to tell it.

For the Prince was a happy young man, full of life and all the hope his energy and his station could afford him, but he was also given to fits of melancholy, for life as the second son of King Anders was not as easy as it might have seemed. His elder brother Cooper was born to the role that was his to play – charming, friendly, and if somewhat lacking in the wisdom and compassion that his tenure as King would require, then both the King and Queen seemed quite certain that he would grow and mature into those. But Blaine had been a more serious boy, and as he grew into a young man his love of music and laughter sometimes hid his tendency to deep passions and a quiet, secret sense that he was not quite the ideal for young Princes.

It left Blaine lonely, sometimes heartsick, and his passions were quick to rise but also difficult to follow. He sat in the middle of a court, seething with the usual jealousies and intrigues, rarely truly alone but never without longing. If Blaine still believed in wishing, he might wish for a companion, a person who would know his secret, heavy heart, and still stay.

And so it happened one night that the Prince stirred in his bedchamber at the sound of rustling fabric and the soft fall of footsteps. He paused, waiting with tense body for the whisper of an unsheathed knife, and kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep until he felt weight settle next to him, separated only by a space he could close with one swift reach. He waited, waited for the blow he feared would come, but when after three, five, eight breaths nothing happened, he opened one eye to peek at the intruder.

There, lying beside him, quiet and still but with eager eyes, was a boy. The Prince understood at once and did not question this, for this kind of dream was familiar to him – since he had become a young man other boys had come to him in his dreams, their unfixed forms helping to pass the long dark hours as Blaine explored his own body like unknown terrain. This boy, though, lay almost unmoving next to him, not pressed diaphanous and unreal against him like those other nighttime visitors but solid of form, though lean and a bit quick of breath.

“Hello,” the Prince whispered. “Have you come to touch me?”

“I have come to see you, at least. I wakened here, in this room, and your songbird still sleeps. Only your breath and scent are familiar, and here I am.”

The light in the bedchamber was dim, only the golden-red glow of the fire illuminating the room, and so Blaine could see little of his nighttime visitor. What he could see was very pleasing, though – hair burnished by the light of the fire, and skin white and smooth as a blossom in springtime.

He ran his hand across the boy’s cheek, which was soft and rough in turn, and leaned closer to him. “Let me but kiss you, then, before I wake and you must go.”

He leaned closer and the boy’s eyes widened, and when Blaine caught his breath he thought, just for a moment, of his Myrtle, fragrant and proud, and then their lips met.

Blaine had kissed many in his dreams but none in his waking life, and the moment caught between the two – perfect and therefore somehow unreal, here in the quietest hours of the dark night. The boy’s mouth was warm, soft, and his breath was like spring – green, alive, tender in anticipation. He slipped one hand into the boy’s hair, soft as thistledown, as he pressed their lips softly together again, gasping when the boy settled one hand upon Blaine’s cheek. His touch was gentle and kind, a brush of soft strength against his face.

Blaine pulled the boy against him, pliant and supple, and their bodies melted together there in his bed, lost in kisses and shared breath. The boy spoke only in whispers and sighs, and they kissed long into the dark night. Blaine pressed him into the fine linens and learned his shape by the tips of his fingers – long brushes down a strong thigh curled around his hip, a fluttering touch across his shoulders – and the dim light and the clean, fresh smell of the man and the sweetness of his kiss cast Blaine into a fever dream of perfection, a long night of the giddy meeting and parting of lips softened into a kiss that seemed to go on without time.

He fell asleep between one kiss and the next, and the next morning when he rose from his empty bed he smiled to remember the most perfect night, the most perfect boy, the dream and wish of his heart.

He spoke of it to no one – there was still the possibility that it was somehow real, and if it was he never wanted it to stop – but that morning as he watered the Myrtle he dropped his face to smell the clean, fresh scent of its leaves and whispered about a boy, the most perfect boy, the home of his heart’s desires.

—-

The boy came again that night. Blaine took his hand and kissed it once, and then settled back against his bed to gaze at his nighttime visitor.

This time the boy seemed more sure of his welcome, and once Blaine dropped his hand he moved at once to settle against Blaine’s shoulder, to let himself rest there, safe and secure, nestled in Blaine’s arms with one hand gliding across Blaine’s chest.

This, too, was unexpected, this simple sharing of comfort and affection. Blaine wrapped him in his arms, felt the beating of his heart, how it quickened when he skated one hand down the curve of the boy’s spine and pressed him close.

“You came.”

“I will always come when you want me.”

Blaine rebelled against the thought. “I have enough servants.”

“But none you trust with your secrets, and none you trust with yourself. And I am where I want to be.” The boy's words were steady, sure, as absolute as the touch of his hand over Blaine’s heart.

“Are you a member of my court? I am certain I would have remembered you.”

“I am not. I know only you, and that you care for me, and that this is my home. You are home for me.”

Those words left Blaine without objection, for it was everything he might have ever wished for. “Have you a name?”

“None but the one you give me,” the boy whispered against his mouth, and the brush of lips against his own left Blaine unable to do anything but kiss him again.

He had known love, but only by proxy – he was loved as a son, as a Prince, but never for the man he was. He thought then of the promise he had made to remember a kind peasant’s lost love so many months ago, how that man had spoken of his wife and the kindness of her heart. He thought of how quickly this boy came to him and how quickly he would surely go, and of the magic of his kiss, and he whispered, misremembering the peasant’s name, “Kurt.”

“Then I am to be Kurt,” the boy said in response. “And you are Blaine.”

Night after night Kurt came, and each night was different. Once they sang quietly, wrapped together but sharing snippets of song. Once Blaine told him of being a boy in a royal household, of tutors and lessons, but Kurt grew quiet when Blaine asked him of his childhood, and Blaine let the silence linger until it turned to kisses once again. Once Blaine saved part of his dinner to share there in their chosen bed, and Kurt’s face when he tasted the sweet, fresh cheese pressed into a cake made Blaine laugh until Kurt pounced on him.

Always there were kisses, and their passion and connection grew. The first time Blaine slipped his hand beneath the loose linen trousers Kurt always wore and held him within his hand, his breath escaped him in a hot rush of Kurt’s name. Kurt only kissed him again and lay back among the pillows, the side of his face illuminated by the fire. But his cock was hard and strong, and Blaine’s desire for him only increased when Kurt gasped a breath of spring across his face and moved his hips, supple and graceful, bending like a branch toward Blaine and then away.

Blaine came to know his taste, his scent, the feel of his fingers and the sound of his voice. And yet he had yet to cast his eyes upon him in full light, and he longed to know in full the face of his beloved, the one he had been looking for forever. And so, late one night, as the fire burned low and Kurt dozed, spent in love and joy, Blaine crept from the bed and collected a twig he’d stowed near the fire. He carefully made his way back to the table near his bed where he had collected a large stand of candles, and he made himself light each and every one before he cast the twig into the fire and turned to gaze upon the face of his Kurt for the very first time.

Kurt turned toward him in his sleep, and as Blaine stared, enraptured, Kurt opened his eyes, hazy with fatigue and satisfaction, and mumbled, “Oh, there you are.”

“Oh, my love,” Blaine whispered. “You are as to the light of the moon. Your skin is like finest silk” he sighed, slipping his fingers down Kurt’s fair cheek, “and your eyes capture me completely,” for they were blue and green like the clear sea on a sunny day. “I knew from the evidence of my hands that you were well-made, and from the lightness of my heart that you were kind and gentle, but never until now did I know the beauty of the face that I hope to gaze upon for the rest of my days.”

Kurt blushed. “My prince, I grow dizzy at your praise for me. For from humble beginnings as a myrtle plant I have come to be this, your partner in love and I wish much more, such that I now feel as the finest of roses in the most beautiful of gardens.”

“No,” Blaine said, moving closer to rest beside him while Kurt gazed on wide-eyed. “For everyone knows that roses are beautiful. Their perfection is common, known by all. You are more special, more precious, for from such beginnings you have grown, by the force of will and wishes, to be the most extraordinary treasure of my heart, the husband of my soul and, in my fondest hopes and wishes, my own future Prince.”

Kurt kissed him then, a tiny spark of love passed between lips that grew into a conflagration that consumed them. They passed many days then, the honeymoon of their intent, until one afternoon Blaine’s father, the King Anders, finally sent for his son. Blaine grumbled but acquiesced, knowing that he had been surely missed from the court in the absence of their reverie, but when he returned his face was solemn.

He pressed the sweet cheese that Kurt liked upon him, and they bathed together, and then when they were wrapped only in fine bed linens and a haze of content anticipation for another night of love, Blaine spoke of they heaviness of his heart.

“My love, I must share the reason for my father’s audience. The Smythehund wanders the forest, wild and untamed. It is said that he seeks only to destroy, to make a mockery of men and their best intentions and then rip them limb from limb. At the rising of the sun I set out to lead a pack of our finest hunters, for my brother is trained but for the finer game of court, and cannot be risked for it.”

At this Kurt clung to Blaine, and Blaine smoothed a hand down his back, thrilling once again at the skin bare to his touch.

“Do not be afraid, my sweetest. I have been trained for this, and we are ready. But we may be away for several nights, and I do not want you to be alone. It does not do for you to fret, and I fear for your safety alone in my rooms while I am away.”

Kurt pondered the quandary, and then proposed that he return to the Myrtle for the duration of the hunt. “I ask only this, that your chamberlain attend to my water and sun while you are away. And I would beg you attach a small bell to my highest branch, that you may ring it upon your return, so I will know when it is safe to come to you.”

Blaine agreed, motivated by fear for his beloved but also a certain amount of greed, for Kurt was lovely and he wished that none other would gaze upon him, not yet.

They passed another night in love, and Blaine’s hands grew bold, possessive, and to his joy Kurt’s did the same. The separation loomed heavy in front of them, and Blaine bared his body to Kurt and wondered at the fierce joy of their lovemaking, at this new bare boldness between them, at the thickness of Kurt moving slow and steady within him.

By the light of the late moon and the dim fire Kurt dressed Blaine for hunting and battle, kissing each piece and murmuring into it his wishes that it would keep his beloved safe. And just before Blaine had to gather his men and make hunt, he kissed Kurt one last time, with one hand settled and safe in the small of his back, and whispered love and promises of a safe return into his skin.

The last thing he did before he left his room to find his chamberlain before his departure was to tie a bell to his Myrtle, displaying in full bloom, and caress it gently so as not to ring it prematurely. “Be well, my love, until my return,” he whispered, and then he made haste.

The faithful Chamberlain Michael was as good as his word, making his way into the Prince’s room twice during the passing of every sun to bring fresh water and sunlight to the Myrtle, careful always not to jostle the plant as the Prince had instructed him. One day passed, two, and then on the third day the door creaked open and a motley crew crept into the Prince’s bedchamber.

The seven courtiers held esteem for their Prince, for he was their Prince, and of a good and pleasant nature. But they were greedy for the light of his attention, and his absence from the court had gone unnoticed by none of them. And so they had gathered and plotted, and while the Prince was away they sought to steal into his rooms to discover what thoroughly distracted their Prince from their own charms.

After the most mischievous of them, so aptly named Puck, had slipped the long shim he’d used to pick the lock back into his pocket and closed the heavy door behind them, they gazed about the room.

It was the Lady Rachel whose eyes alighted upon the Myrtle, sunning beside the open window, and cried, “Oh! It is so beautiful! Surely the Prince would not notice a simple leaf gone, for I should have it as a keepsake of our mutual affection.”

Once she had plucked a leaf for herself the others quickly followed suit, stripping the leaves and secreting them into their pockets, until only the youngest remained to do so. Scared and timid and unsure, the Lady Tina stuttered out, “Oh, it is so lovely, and I so long for a reminder of my own, but it seems unkind to make it less beautiful for my own purposes. Let me merely slip this bell into my pocket, so that I may have a reminder of this beauty every time I hear it ring.”

And when she loosed the bell from the Myrtle the clapper within it came alive, setting a gentle tinkling through the room.

The seven paused, waiting to see if they would be discovered, and while they did none of them noticed the now stripped bare Myrtle melting away into nothing. They could not have missed, though, the beautiful boy who appeared there behind them, stripped likewise of all garments but with an eager smile for the beloved he thought would await him.

At the unmistakable look of love and anticipation upon his face, and the beauty of his form, the intruders flew into a jealous and wrathful rage, sure now that they understood the cause of their Prince’s distraction. All but the youngest set upon him, tearing him limb-from-limb, while the youngest simply dropped the bell upon the carpet and, choking back a sob, fled the room with utmost haste. The six remaining fed upon the rage and confusion of the others, persevering in their attack until all that remained of the once fine form they’d discovered there was a sprawl of carnage and destruction.

When they had quieted and were merely breathing heavily, the Lady Rachel was again the first to realize what they had done and, seizing the hands of her erstwhile paramours Finn and Jesse, fled the room at once. The others followed, and leaving the door wide open, departed with the ghost of their crimes fresh upon their heels.

When the Chamberlain came that evening to close the window and provide the Myrtle with the last of the day’s water, his hand flew to his mouth at the sight before him, and he quickly scooped all of the gore from the room back into the pot and, unthinking in his horror, poured the last of the water atop it. In his despair he swept the bell from the carpet and gently laid it atop the carnage in the pot, and then, locking the door, fled the town to purge his mind of all that he had seen.

The next morning the Prince returned in high spirits, disheveled but unbroken save for one long scratch across his eye. Unable to locate his Chamberlain and growing increasingly desperate, he kicked the door to his chamber open in his haste to return to his beloved.

And there stood the Myrtle, one small bare branch listing aimlessly in the soil. The Prince fell to his knees and wept, inconsolable, for no matter how desperately, how violently he shook the bell, there still stood that single branch.

\---

 

For days Blaine mourned the loss of the boy he had come to love as his husband. Bitter tears and lamentation gave way to rage at the mysterious culprits, who had left no sign, and his missing Chamberlain. Rage faded into despair, which in turn led again to the most thorough grief of the young Prince's life. He thought again of the kind peasant through whose generosity the Myrtle had come into his life, and he remembered his pain at the loss of his own beloved, and he wept for both of them.

On the fourth day the Prince drew himself from his bed where he had fallen, and he sat on its edge with his head buried in his hands, resting just there. His body ached with sorrow, with the pain of what was missed, but he also felt cleansed, for his period of grief had purged some of the sadness within him. There he still sat, broken and unsure, but he also felt as if every sorrow of his life had been expressed, and there was nothing left for it but to move on. And so he held the Myrtle in his hands, cradled gently, and he remembered.

He remembered the first time he'd lain eyes on this tender plant, and he remembered when he'd first touched his skin. He remembered being a boy, always in his brother's shadow, and he remembered how Kurt's eyes had lit upon his face as if he was all that Kurt had ever wished for. He remembered his loneliness, and he remembered their laughter, and he prepared himself to say goodbye.

For goodbye it surely was, and the Prince, in his heart of hearts, could not say that he was surprised. The Myrtle had come to him only as the prize of a wish, and Blaine had known for some time that wishes are the most ephemeral of things, unsure and unpredictable. He had been given his heart's desire, but he had failed to protect it, and Blaine had feared from a boy the price of failure. This was, surely, no more than exactly what was just.

And so he cradled that one still branch in the palm of his hand, gently, as he might hold his beloved, for surely that's what it was. And he leaned forward, his tears falling into the soil, and he placed a kiss upon that bare branch. There he whispered his gratitude, his joy and his sorrow, and above all he whispered his love.

And then he closed his eyes and wished one last time, for the sake of remembrance and his lost love, and felt lips rest upon his open palm, for his head had fallen forward so that he kissed only his own hand.

For there, standing before him, was his Kurt.

Blaine startled, jumping from the bed and dropping the pot in the process, and it rolled across the rich carpet, spilling soil as it went. He stood to face Kurt, to grasp him by the shoulders, and there he froze.

For this was unmistakably his own beloved, but Kurt's face had changed much. The innocence of his eyes had faded, leaving behind a surety, a hardness to be sure but also a confidence and a knowledge that had once been missing. Before he beheld Kurt now, Blaine would have sworn that he loved him, but this new Kurt, so changed, so poised and strong in his own body, was no longer the same boy but something transformed.

Kurt gathered his hands in his own, and brushing a gentle kiss across Blaine's knuckles, said only, "Do not weep any longer, my Prince, for I have conquered my fear and my own sick sorrow, and I have returned to you a new man."

Blaine fell into him then, weak with relief and a sorrowful joy.

Kurt held him, there in the afternoon sun, soaking it in and whispering to Blaine all that had transpired. He told him of his fear, of his own sorrow, of all the worry and woe that had kept him from returning to his love. And then he whispered of his resolve. "But if I am to be your husband, I am to be my own man, and one who cannot conquer his fear is not worthy of you. Before I wished only to be seen, to be loved by you, but now I see the world more clearly. The world waits for us, Blaine, but only if we can face together that which we most fear, and only if we wish together for the better world we can create."

And so, together, they planned and they talked, late into the night, and they loved with that same fierce intensity that their coupling had shared when last they'd been together. This time, though, they loved throughout the night, with every candle lit, so that Blaine could see the fierceness of the love that shone in Kurt's eyes and the soft, tender, vulnerable turn of his mouth while Blaine moved within him.

When they had loved until their bodies were worn tired, weak, sprawled like a fall of leaves across the sated earth, Blaine said, "I will never doubt you again."

"No, my love. You may doubt me; I am not a perfect man, and I have yet much to learn. But this, we two together, is, I believe, beyond the sphere of doubt. Together, we may be certain."

Blaine held him tighter, resting his head upon Kurt's shoulder, and then Kurt dropped a kiss to the top of his head, where a crown would rest. And then Kurt said, "Tomorrow we see your father, for there are niceties we should no longer avoid."

And so they did. Blaine presented Kurt with no small measure of excitement, and the King and the Queen beheld their son's beloved with confusion and then, upon watching their son and understanding the light in his eyes and the peace in his countenance, their confusion turned to joy, and they announced a wedding to take place most immediately.

Blaine sent word far into the countryside in search of his Chamberlain, who returned only days later with a hung head and apologies on his lips. While he had been away, though, he hastened to tell the Prince, he had made inquiries and discovered the identities of the wicked seven who had almost destroyed the only true happiness their Prince had ever known. The Chamberlain then showed in the youngest, Lady Tina, whose head hung with despair while she colored furiously and stuttered out her shameful confession. Blaine watched her for long moments, and then glanced at his Chamberlain, whose eyes grew warm and soft when they rested upon her. And then Kurt, his own proud beloved, rose from his seat beside Blaine and embraced in full the Lady Tina, and his own sympathetic eyes held Blaine's as Kurt said, "Hush, now, and recriminate yourself no more. I know what it is to wish for Blaine's affection and attention, and I remember you there, recall clearly your look of horror at what had become of the afternoon. Worry yourself no longer."

Justice was swift, and the remaining six were banished without sympathy from the realm, sent to do their evil and their conniving in some distant land where they could no longer do injury to those who were merely seeking their own best happiness.

Kurt made plans for the two of them to travel, to see the world that he had never yet understood, even as their wedding plans were finalized. Every night, still, they lived and loved, and when Kurt presented Blaine with a very fine sprig of myrtle there in his own old pot, Blaine laughed and understood that Kurt was this now – a fine man, thoughtful, seeking his own joy and his own understanding with his partner there by his side.

And so Blaine sought to return the favor, and trusted the Chamberlain to accompany a group of men to seek out a very special guest for the wedding that would unite them, Kurt and Blaine, forever.

When Kurt and Blaine married it was with a great pealing of bells, a wild flurry of white blossoms to accompany the union of two spirits, brimming with anticipation of all that life would hold for them and spilling over with wishes that they shared with hushed whispers and strongly clasped hands. And there, in the great hall, sat Burt, tears staining his cheeks and joy bright in his eyes, as he beheld everything that could follow from wishes well-shared.

And so we see that wishes are not intangible things, whispered into the wind and lost between one breath and another. They are but a statement of intent, but when they accompany struggle and honesty and a life lived in full, they may be all that is necessary.


End file.
